Long Beach schools meeting mandate on technical education from state superintendent

LONG BEACH - State Superintendent Tom Torlakson this week unveiled his new Career Readiness Initiative designed to lower dropout rates and improve career readiness by promoting career technical education in high schools.

"The ongoing budget crisis and an 18 percent dropout rate mean we have to take action to help our students - and our state's economy," Torlakson said in a statement. "Career technical education is a proven way to ensure more of our students, especially those who are deemed `at risk,' succeed after high school."

The initiative stresses the need to increase student engagement through career- themed training in California Partnership Academies - small learning communities within larger high schools in which students follow a multiyear program focused on career and technical skills.

California currently has 500 such academies, serving 3 percent of all students in grades 10 through 12.

The initiative includes strategies for increasing the number of CPAs within high schools and recrafting high school curriculum to include career-readiness components. Reports show that 95 percent of seniors participating in CPAs go on to graduate, compared with 85 percent of their peers.

The Long Beach Unified School District last fall earned special recognition for its CPAs from the Linked Learning Alliance, a statewide coalition of educators, policymakers and leaders.

CPAs in Long Beach Unified include Poly High School's Pacific Rim Academy as well as Jordan High School's Aspirations in Medical Services Academy and its Architecture, Construction and Engineering Academy or ACE, two programs at Millikan High School and one at California Academy of Mathematics and Science.

In 2010, the ACE Academy at Jordan High became the first of two programs statewide to earn a special certification from Linked Learning.

Founded in 2007, ACE prepares students for entry-level jobs, apprenticeships, technical and trade certification programs, community college and university options.